Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Voroshilov (4 February 1881-2 December 1969) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union who served as the People's Commissar for Defense from 6 November 1925 to 7 May 1940, succeeding Mikhail Frunze and preceding Semyon Timoshenko. Voroshilov was also a member of the State Defense Committee from 1941 to 1944, and he was the de jure head of state of the USSR from 15 March 1953 to 7 May 1960 as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, succeeding Nikolay Shvernik and preceding Leonid Brezhnev.

Biography
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov was born on 4 February 1881 in Verkhnye, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Lysychansk, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine) to an ethnic Russian family. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1905 and led the Soviet Southern Front and the Soviet 1st Cavalry Army during the Russian Civil War and the Polish-Soviet War, and he was unable to prevent defeats at the hands of Poland or murderous violence against Jews by the cavalry. Voroshilov was a close ally of Joseph Stalin in the Military Council, which was led by Stalin's rival Leon Trotsky, and he became a Politburo member in 1926. In 1935, he was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union by Stalin, and he proceeded to denounce his own colleagues and subordinates during the Great Purge in order to stay in Stalin's good graces.

Voroshilov served as People's Commissar for Defense (Minister of Defense) from 1925 to 1940, but he was removed from command after the Red Army suffered 185,000 losses in the Winter War with Finland. Stalin scapegoated Voroshilov, who retorted by telling Stalin that he had killed the Red Army's greatest generals in the purge, and he smashed a platter of roasted pig in an outburst which cost him his job. Voroshilov became a member of the general headquarters in mid-1941, but his failure to halt the German drive on Leningrad during World War II ended his active field command. He spent the remainder of the war in various staff positions and attending several inter-Allied conferences.

After World War II, Voroshilov survived the anti-Stalinist purges of Nikita Khrushchev, and he retired in 1960. He briefly served as the figurehead leader of the Soviet government from 1953 to 1960, and he died in Moscow in 1969.